Phase separation in coamorphous systems: in silico prediction and the experimental challenge of detection

Combinatorial chemistry has enabled the production of very potent drugs that might otherwise suffer from poor solubility and low oral bioavailability. One approach to increase solubility is to make the drug amorphous, which leads to problems associated with drug stability. To improve stability, one option is to molecularly disperse the drug in a matrix. However, the primary reason for the failed stabilization with this approach is phase separation, which has been carefully studied in polymeric systems. Nevertheless, the amorphous-amorphous phase separation in coamorphous small molecule mixtures has not yet been reported. The goal of the present study was to experimentally detect the amorphous-amorphous phase separation between two small molecules. A modified in silico method for predicting miscibility by the Flory-Huggins interaction parameter is presented, where conformational variations of the studied molecules were taken into account. A series of drug-drug mixtures, with different mixture ratios, were analyzed by conventional differential scanning calorimetry (DSC(conv)) to detect possible amorphous-amorphous phase separations. The phase separation of coamorphous drug-drug mixtures was also monitored by temperature modulated DSC (MDSC) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) imaging at temperatures above Tg for prolonged time periods. Amorphous-amorphous phase separation was not detected with DSC(conv), probably due to the slow kinetics of phase separation. However, the melting of the separated and subsequently crystallized phases was detected by MDSC. Furthermore, FT-IR imaging was able to detect the separation of the two amorphous phases, which demonstrates the ability of this method to detect small molecule phase separations.